When He Cried
by deb-sampson
Summary: Under Veritaserum, a tyrant reveals his motives and himself.


Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter; the characters are simply being borrowed for pleasure and not profit.  
  
"Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,  
  
and the poetry he invented was easy to understand;  
  
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,  
  
and was greatly interested in armies and fleets;  
  
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,  
  
and when he cried, the little children died in the streets."  
  
–Epitaph on a Tyrant, by W.H. Auden  
  
I learned about power the hard way, by learning about myself. Walking through a sterile grey corridor with children's dorms on either side like cells, I got shoved up to the wall and called "idiot" by some teenage thug, for the tenth time. I was eight years old when I learned that "idiot" just meant someone too naive to know the rules, or too weak to break them.  
  
I filled out as the years passed. My body was growing, but I was growing into my mind too. I was wandering down those unused corriders of my soul, the ones that sparkled like green lightening amidst the sterile grey. I learned I had the strength to break free. The strength to be smart. The strength to break.  
  
Even the "nice" kids value the strength to break. The Hufflepuffs who break down in tears at the slightest insult will mete out their "honest judgements" by the cartload. They'll laugh when a Ravenclaw makes a mistake, or when a Slytherin trips in the hall. They'll laugh louder than the others, because they relish the chance.  
  
I, too, relish the chance to break. To break through the wall of insults, the thick grey lining they gifted me with at the Home; the lining of worthlessness to protect me from being seduced by Hope.They wanted no seductions there; no fecundity in the home of unwanted children.   
  
You were unwanted, too. Your lightening was kept sterile. You hate me, but I'm the one who made you wanted. All the courage you have is rooted in hate of me. You want to overpower me and break me.   
  
You want to push me against the wall with the strength of your curses; you want me to crunch against the grey sterile wall and break; but if you saw me lying there, the color of my blood would be the brightest thing in the hall. Your life would be defined by my death, and you'd walk the sterile corridor all your life, with people staring at you, seeing you decked in my blood.  
  
What? Raising your wand again? Are you so stupid you don't know what will happen when you cast that curse? Learn from my mistakes. Learn, Harry Potter, that everything you have ever striven for is a mistake. The lightening you got from me is your power and strength. Have you ever walked down that corridor of your soul?  
  
Magic is immortal, Harry Potter. The thrilling, zig-zag ride away from the straight corridor, through the walls. Anything is possible.  
  
Muggle buildings are like coffins; the priests stare down in starched collars at the flickering spirit, and snuff it. The rites for the living are preparations for death.  
  
I am doing you a favor, Harry. I am doing everyone a favor. You will all know what life and death are when I am done. You will all hate me as much as I have hated.  
  
Yes, I'm muggle-born, and what does it matter? I will hate as much as I've been hated. I'm not an idiot, Harry Potter. I know the rules quite well; I know that its my pleasure and future to break them.  
  
After this gentleman's talk, will you say "truce"? I'm civilized Harry; your eyes are wide because you don't realize what civilization is. It means carving out your culture, sculpting your face as your signature. Your face glowing in the sky. Perfect, strong.  
  
No one who sees the Morsmorde thinks "idiot". No one sees the deadly green and thinks of the grey halls. I'm no unwanted child. I want myself, badly, wholly.  
  
A flash of light hit the philosopher demon in the middle of his Veritasium-induced ramble. Severus Snape jumped back from his former master, dropping the empty flask in shock, and Harry Potter lowered his wand, looking up at a green bolt of lightening that marked the night sky above. The clouds, illumined by the light, seemed to take the shape of a long white beard and too-perceptive eyes. "I'm wanted," Harry thought. Gryffindor tower had red, gold, and curving lines, no straight wall of unmitigated grey. "I'll always be wanted," Harry thought.  
  
Severus Snape began to laugh as he watched the Gryffindor's face begin to move from courage to dismay. Harry Potter watched the crumpled, deformed thing that used to be Tom Riddle, the dull, dead red eyes; the scaly, dry old skin. Traces of saliva dotted the dead man's robe where his sycophant Death Eaters had kissed the hem, slobbering in pain from Crucio.  
  
What a fight it had been for power and immortality. It suddenly struck Harry that the Dark Lord had no children.   
  
Severus laughed louder as the other Death Eaters approached the center of this field, where he and Harry stood, where Voldemort's body lay. Here were his children. His insane, marble children, monstrous beyond self-deception, horrible beyond hypocrisy.  
  
Severus grabbed Potter, activating his portkey at the same time. They arrived together, one crying, one frantically laughing, in the middle of a crowd of children in Diagon Alley. They walked down the street side by side, hands so close their fingers mingled, and said nothing. 


End file.
